Where will you find me at NAVUG Forum 2013?
Posted: October 14, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: NAVUG, user group Leave a comment
We’re one week away from NAVUG Forum in beautiful Tampa, Florida. If you read the blog or maybe you’ve taken one of my classes, I’d love it if you said hello! Here’s where you can find me during the conference:
Monday, 10/21
8:00 to 5:00 Teaching a full day Academy class: Account Schedules and Analysis Views.
5:00 Attending Buddy Night to make sure first time attendees start off the conference on the right foot.
Tuesday, 10/22
8:00 – General Session. Will you see me on stage? What will I be doing? Show up to find out!
10:00 – Conducting a session: Account Schedule Basics
In one quick hour, learn some account schedule basics, and then see how you can set up one schedule and look at it in nine different and easy ways! This session will highlight the differences the RTC and 2013 have made to navigation with account schedules, but all functionality will be applicable to Classic users.
1:15 – Conducting a session: Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
When Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, published her 2013 book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, she didn’t expect it would become the feminist manifesto of the decade. Her observations about fully engaging in our work, bringing all of our talents to the table, and claiming ownership of our roles as leaders in our organizations apply to all professionals. Join this session to discuss how we can all answer her pivotal question: What Would You Do if You Weren’t Afraid?
5:00 to 8:00 Working the iloveNAV booth!
Wednesday, 10/23
11:15 – Conducting a session: Dimensions? Posting Groups? What’s the Difference?
Ever wonder if you’re really using dimensions and posting groups the right way? This session will clarify the differences between these two fundamental parts of your Microsoft Dynamics NAV financial setup. If you’re in the process of deciding how to set these up or trying to decide how to improve on what you have already, you’ll get some great ideas in this session.
6:00 to 8:00 Working the iloveNAV booth!
Thursday, 10/24
9:15 – Conducting a session: The World of Web-Based Microsoft Dynamics NAV Resources
There are a ton of resources out there on the web just waiting for you to find them. The question is, will you find them valuable once you get there? Learn about different types of Microsoft Dynamics NAV resources available on the web for end users, super-users, developers, and more. Find out what’s going to work best for you to maximize the time you have to find answers for what you need.
1:15 – Conducting a session: 50 Tips in 50 Minutes for Finance
This version of our popular, fast-paced 50 tips session focuses on Finance – so get ready to take lots of notes as we run through 50 great tips on how to get more from Microsoft Dynamics NAV Financials to help you be more effective.
3:45 – As the co-chair for the Programming Committee, I’ll be attending the Closing General Feedback Session to hear what you have to say about this year’s conference and to find out what you’d like to see next year.
That’s where I’ll be next week if you’re looking for me. Make sure to say hello! I’d love to hear how you are making NAV work at your company!
My #1 Objective for NAVUG Forum is…
Posted: September 17, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: NAVUG, user group Leave a commentAs a member of the NAVUG programming committee, I’ve got just one goal at NAVUG Forum this year, and that is to find GREAT examples of what NAV users are doing with NAV at their companies and get these companies to do a CUSTOMER SHOWCASE for other NAV users in webinar format later in the year. I’m ready with a list of questions and I will be talking to as many NAV users as possible to ask them:
- What’s the most amazing thing your company has used NAV to accomplish this last year?
- What special project have you completed using NAV this year?
- What thing have you been doing with NAV lately that has saved you a ton of time?
- What one thing are you doing with NAV at your company that you think other people should know about?
- What month would be better for you to do a customer showcase webinar, February or March?
I believe the value of sharing real world applied solutions is priceless and want to provide opportunities for users to teach other users the best practices they know and are using in their businesses every day.
The NAVUG makes it very easy to do and provides all the technology needed for you to share your story, but we need YOU to tell it. If you’re a little shy about public presentation, this is a great time to ask your partner to present this information along with you.
Really, just avoid the hassle of me asking you all those questions. Send me a message to tell me what you’re proud about doing with NAV at your company.
NAV users just “get” it
Posted: July 1, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: collaborate, community, learning, NAVUG, networking, training, user group Leave a comment
Don’t you love it when you’re talking to someone about something and you can immediately tell they “get” what you’re talking about? There’s that magical click in your conversation when you can both relax into the discussion and really geek out about the topic. That topic might be baseball, or marathon running, or gardening, or maybe even Microsoft Dynamics NAV.
If you ever wished there was someone out there who would really like to talk about inventory costing, or C/AL coding, or dimensions or other things, the NAV user group (NAVUG) is the place where you can find those people.
This amazing group of people have formed one big network of NAV users who are eager to connect with you, welcome you to the community, and help you solve business problems for your company.
There are a wealth of opportunities to connect with the members of NAVUG. There is not only the annual user conference, NAVUG Forum, held in October each year, but also many chances to engage with other users in webinars throughout the year, and now, last week, we’ve seen the launch of Collaborate. This online tool was built to give NAV users a virtual environment where we can gather regularly to have those kind of discussions and to keep up with all the things that are going within the community.
If you’ve been looking for more people who just “get” it, you’re here. Check out the new Collaborate site and get into a discussion today!
Why Build Community?
Posted: June 18, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: community, Dynamics, manuals, Microsoft, NAV, training, user group 1 CommentBack when I first recommended Microsoft Dynamics NAV to my company as an ERP solution, I was a lone voice in my universe. I had run the whole gauntlet of the request for proposal, partner screening, requirements planning, and final selection, and ultimately I was the person in charge and therefore responsible for where our company ended up because of my choice.
The first few years of using Microsoft Dynamics NAV were a little rough and I did many of the following things to solve problems:
- Spent hours on the internet searching for terms that might get me some results. Many of the searches ended up in programming and development forums that would show me the code behind what was happening, but wouldn’t help me, as an end user, figure out what steps I should take.
- Read the manuals I had gotten from my partner. I spend hours going through the manuals I had been given and trying to piece together how I could do more advanced tasks by cobbling together the simple examples I had.
- Brainstormed with my boss and my staff. We had quite a few long conversations about how to get things done. Some of these conversations actually solved the problem, many of them ended up with needing to go back to the manuals, or the internet, or to our partner.
- Just tried it in the live system to see if I could figure it out. Sometimes this was successful and sometimes it created more problems than where I had started. I was an inexperienced end user who didn’t even know having a test system was possible. When pressed, I took the risk (in small steps) to see if I could get it figured out.
- Called our partner for help. When all of the above failed, I would reach out to our partner for assistance and pay them to help us out.
What an incredible waste of time! I had spent hours and hours of time trying to solve simple problems. Why? Because I thought I was alone. Because I thought I was the only person who could solve what we had. Because I hadn’t built a network.
Eventually, I got smarter. I started to ask our partner, “Surely you have other customers who have this same problem. What do they do?”, and in return I got silence and an invoice for services. I went back to the internet and looked again, and this time, I learned about user groups and began to look for a user group for Microsoft Dynamics NAV, and I found one! I started small, lurking in webinars and listening and learning and applying all the things I learned back at the office.
Since then, I’ve gotten the opportunity to regularly attend the annual user group conference, and have built a robust network with other NAV users. While I do still go to the internet for answers, I know where to go and where not to go to get my answers. I know where to get the right manuals for what I really need. I don’t mess things up in my live system because I have an effective test system. I still pay my partner for help, but I get to pay them for things that really make a difference in improving things at my company instead of paying them to help with things I should be able to do myself. Most importantly, I have a whole network of Controllers and CFOs and other professionals from other companies who I can email or call to help solve a problem.
I’m no longer a lone voice, but a single voice in an entire chorus of knowledgeable NAV users who are making a difference at their companies because we’ve all chosen to build a community together.
If you haven’t found your community yet, find it here at www.navug.com .
These folks are ready for NAVUG Forum. Are you?
Posted: June 11, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Forum, learning, NAVUG, Tampa, user group Leave a comment
I’ve been watching what people have been posting on social media about the upcoming NAVUG Forum conference held in Tampa this October, and it’s starting to get pretty exciting as plans are revealed about what’s being offered. Here are just a few:
From a press release issued by ArcherPoint on June 6th:
ArcherPoint, LLC, a Microsoft Dynamics ERP Gold Partner specializing in Microsoft Dynamics NAV solutions and upgrades, today announced that CEO Greg Kaupp and other key members of the ArcherPoint team will present at NAVUG Forum 2013 in Tampa, FL, October 21-24, 2013.
“We couldn’t be more excited about the 6th annual NAVUG Forum. Our largest planning team to date has already identified close to 100 dynamite sessions across 12 tracks,” said Mark Rhodes, NAVUG Interim Program Director. “I believe there is something for everyone this year, with a jam-packed schedule and 11 pre-conference training classes. With 400 fellow NAV users, it’s going to be a fantastic opportunity to learn, network, and share.”
NAV has a long track record for attracting international companies and we are excited about the program we’re putting together and the fantastic support we are receiving from the NAVUG committee as well as from the interest groups related to international activities. We have literally received input from all over the world. We are setting the bar high and we want to make this the best NAVUG Forum ever.
Take a look at the full schedule of sessions recently published on the NAVUG Forum site! New to NAV, Tips and Tricks, Warehousing and Distribution, and Service Management are four new never before offered tracks this year. Perennial favorites like Finance, BI and Reporting, Manufacturing and Supply Chain, and IT and Developers are looking good with foundational offerings as well as fresh new material including quite a few customer showcases. NAVUG continues to highlight the newly established Global track and the agenda is nicely rounded out with offerings in Business Leadership and an entire day of pre-conference optional training to help you maximize your learning at the conference.
I can see over 100 possibilities for learning at this quick three-day conference; plenty of ways to increase your knowledge about the ERP system you use every day at your company. If you need a few more reasons, check out this article from the Microsoft Dynamics Community. Early bird pricing allows you to save $200 if you register before June 30th.
See you in Tampa! I’m ready, are you?
Blogiversary Top 20 (#2) NAV keyboard shortcuts – Classic to RTC
Posted: April 26, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Classic Client, keyboard shortcut, Microsoft, NAVUG, RTC, tips and tricks, user group Leave a commentWe’re celebrating our one year blogiversary by reposting the Top 20 Most Viewed in the last year, as determined by you, our readers! Follow this link to see the entire list. Enjoy!
Who knew that keyboard shortcuts could be so darn controversial?
I recently got the chance to present a NAV tips and tricks session at the NAVUG Midwest Regional Chapter meeting, and one topic that came up again and again was what keyboard shortcuts were changing in the transition from the classic client to the role-tailored client (RTC).
The first discussion started as a rumor during the social hour the night prior. “Did you hear they’re getting rid of F8?” “No, they can’t get rid of F8!” “What’ll we do without F8?” “Oh my inventory accountant is going to hate that” “Well I heard they’re changing everything.”
Well lucky for us we had quite a few folks there who have already been using the RTC who were able to quite handily put that vicious rumor to rest. F8 is firmly available to copy the field above in the new client, just has it has been in the classic client.
There are quite a few other things that are just simply changing, and I think the changes make a whole lot of sense.
Take F3. F3 has been the constant companion of the NAV user, utilized whenever we needed to designate a new record, a new line, a new document, or a new card. Anything new has been F3. This has been replaced with four new commands in the RTC. Complicated? No, I think that Microsoft has made a concerted effort to simplify by making keyboard shortcuts more consistent with other Microsoft Office products. Even though four new commands are replacing one, I think that Ctrl+N will come quite naturally to someone wanting to create a new record. Ctrl+Insert likewise makes sense for inserting a new line. Ctrl+Shift+C for opening a new card and Ctrl-F2 for creating a new document may be a little taxing, but I’m betting we’ll all get used to it. Frankly, I’m glad to see Microsoft making it easier and more consistent for new users to adopt.
I’m sure I may utter an oath or two when I hit F3 in the RTC and instead of getting a new record, get bumped into a field filter. But I sure will appreciate many of the brand new keyboard shortcuts that support RTC features that we’ve never had before like Alt+Tab to switch among open windows and F5 which now acts as a refresh command, just like it does in other programs.
Check out the link below which goes to a Microsoft .pdf listing out a nice comparative list of keyboard shortcuts between the classic client and the RTC. This will be the first document I give to my end users when we start working on our transition to the RTC. There will always be fear of change, even with small things like keyboard shortcuts.
Encourage folks to look for the consistencies and efficiencies gained with the new ones and remind them; at least they didn’t get rid of F8.
Admiral Consulting Group interviews Kerry Rosvold about the NAVUG
Posted: April 8, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Convergence, Microsoft, NAVUG, user group 1 Comment
Admiral Consulting Group, a partner from the east coast, interviewed me about the benefits of belonging to the NAUG (user group).
Follow the link to get to the video on You Tube or view the article here.
Blogiversary Top 20 (#18) Learning about Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013: on demand learning from NAVUG is a fantastic resource!
Posted: April 4, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: learning, NAV 2013, NAVUG, training, user group Leave a commentWe’re celebrating our one year blogiversary by reposting the Top 20 Most Viewed in the last year, as determined by you, our readers! Follow this link to see the entire list. Enjoy!
As my company continues to move down the path to upgrading to NAV 2013, learning about the new version is high on our list of priorities. Yesterday, we gathered a group of 18 employees to view a webinar that had been recorded by the NAV user group (NAVUG). The live webinar had been done a month ago, but NAVUG records all of its webinars so user group members can view them on demand later.
I took the opportunity to view the webinar first to vet the material for appropriateness for our group. Being able to see the recording first allowed us to tailor the list of who we invited to view the webinar. Based on the content of the webinar, we invited NAV end users from the customer care, purchasing, finance, IT, warehouse, and marketing departments as well as our CFO and CEO. It was hugely convenient to be able to view the recorded webinar as a group because it allowed us to do this at a time that was convenient to us, we all got to consume the same learning experience at the same time, and we got a chance to discuss what we saw in the context of our own upgrade plans.
The webinar we viewed was titled “NAVUG 2013 Webinar Series: Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013 – A Functional Preview” and we were excited to see some of the new charting and cash flow improvements, as well as to hear about dimension sets, database performance increases, and improved copy and paste. There were some smiles and ooh and aahs during the discussion of the web client and SharePoint clients for remote access and use of tablet technologies like the iPad and Surface. There was even a smattering of applause when the presenter showed some improved Excel integration features! Most importantly, all the people in the room got to pick up on the real world impact that NAV 2013 improvements will have on their jobs. Our company is still using the Classic Client, so for most of the people attending this was their first exposure to the Role Tailored Client and this webinar really got a lot of them thinking about what the “new” NAV would look like.
I can see already that NAVUG has two more sessions planned in their NAV 2013 Webinar Series. You can bet I’ll be viewing both of these, whether it is at the scheduled time for the webinar, or later, from the recorded session, and finding a way to share the info with other interested folks at my company.
NAVUG NAV 2013 Series: Introduction to ODATA Web Services: How to easily publish your NAV data 01/30/2013 11:00 AM (ET) NAV 2013 brings ODATA Web Services as a new way to access your NAV data from outside the system. Attend this session to find out how you can use ODATA to access your data from many other applications like Excel, SQL Reporting Services, Internet Explorer, smartphones and tablets.
NAVUG NAV 2013 Series: New Feature – Cash Flow 02/14/2013 09:30 AM (ET) We will demo how the new Cash Flow Forecast in NAV 2013 gives an efficient way to forecast short-term cash flow, enable better monitoring of cash receipts and cash disbursements and use the information to take preemptive steps.
For the cost of our annual corporate NAVUG membership, we were able to get 18 people at our company exposed to important concepts about the new version of the software that will be coming their way soon. We didn’t need to incur any travel costs or even any seminar registration fees, and we were able to schedule it at a time that worked for us. I know our company will continue to use the NAVUG library of recorded webinars as we continue to learn about NAV 2013. I hope you find this resource as useful as we have!
DynamicsNAVFinancials blog celebrates one year with top 20 postings
Posted: April 1, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Account Schedules, budgets, Classic Client, Convergence, dimensions, Dynamics, Excel, export to excel, financial reporting, financial statement, general ledger, NAV, NAV 2013, NAVUG, payment terms, PowerPivot, tips and tricks, user group 2 Comments
It’s our blogiversary! I started this blog in April 0f 2012, inspired by the number of NAV end users I had met over the last year who had the same questions that just weren’t getting answered. What better way to get that information out to folks than a blog where I could write up the topic in an easy to understand way?
You’ve shown your support! Over that last year, we’ve had over 15,000 views, almost 100 followers via email, have people following us on our new Facebook page, and know that many of you follow postings through the RSS feed. People from more than 120 countries are reading DynamicsNAVFinancials! The blog has gotten enough attention to be picked up for syndication through Microsoft Dynamics Community and I was even asked to participate as one of the eleven official bloggers at Microsoft Dynamics Convergence 2013 last month.
Special thanks has got to go to the NAVUG. The user group has been especially supportive of me and of the blog, finding opportunities for me to speak to NAV users in person, in webinars, online classes, and through this blog. Without the support of the user group this would have been a much longer road and I am so grateful for the constant work they have done to get me in front of as many readers as possible.
Publishing over an entry a week in the last year, there’s a lot to choose from, but in the month of April, I’ll be re-running the top 20 postings determined by the most viewed entries. Enjoy, and thank you so much for reading! There would be no reason to do this without you!
19 The NAV accountant’s little helper: the reconciliation account check box
18 Learning about Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013: on demand learning from NAVUG is a fantastic resource!
17 Tis the (Budget) Season! Three handy NAV account schedule tips to get you through
16 Tips and tricks for a flawless budget load in NAV
15 Why NAV users should be using dual monitors
14 Video Demo: How to export NAV account schedules to Microsoft Excel
13 Basic row setup options for NAV Account Schedules
12 Aging methods in NAV – which buckets are you looking for?
11 Complete row setup options for NAV account schedules
10 Learning about Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2013
9 Where can I learn more about NAV analysis reports and analysis by dimensions?
8 10 easy tips for payment terms success in Microsoft Dynamics NAV
6 Getting started with a new account schedule
4 Maximize your Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2009 Classic screen space with user level configuration options
3 Basic column layout options for NAV Account Schedules
2 NAV keyboard shortcuts – Classic to RTC
1 The Account Schedules Formulas Page
You’ve seen the future, it’s time for the NOW
Posted: March 25, 2013 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: Convergence, NAVUG, user group Leave a comment
I can’t agree more with the recent post Suzanne Scanlan posted regarding the connection between Microsoft Dynamics Convergence and the NAVUG Forum. Convergence is a great view of the future, but NAVUG Forum hits us where we live – in the now. It’s the one opportunity I have every year to connect intimately with my NAV community. For three of four days we live, breathe, and even dream NAV because we get the chance to immerse ourselves in learning about and solving business challenges with our primary tool, NAV. The really great thing is we get to learn from each other! Volunteer end users present the majority of the sessions, so you know the information you’re getting is coming from someone who uses the software every day, just like you do, and likely in the same version that you are using now. I love to see the bright shiny vision of the Microsoft future at Convergence, but on a practical level, I won’t be arriving at that point in time for at least two years. The material I consume at NAVUG Forum is immediately applicable to what I’m facing in the now.
If you’re looking for info about the upcoming 2013 NAVUG Forum held in Tampa, FL October 21-25 check out these links.
Examples of content offered at the 2012 NAVUG conference
Dynamics NAV Financials 